Cuttings
by catpig
Summary: He knew more about the supernatural than the average kid,but still: what's a guy who's never heard the word youkai before supposed to do when his classmate starts turning into Inuyasha? Is this demonic possesion, or something stranger?
1. Chapter 1 Scissors

**Disclaimer: Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi, I am using her character with no permission or profit involved. Everything else in this story is mine.**

Ok, so I could see the description (along with the first couple chapters) being confusing. What I did here was take poor, much put upon Inuyasha, spirited him away from his happy(sorta) home and entangled him into a story of my own construction. It may take a few chapters for it to come clear where he is (find Waldo!) and what exactly is going on (it is meant to be mysterious) so bare with me. If confusion really drives you crazy, feel free to drop me a line with questions (and perhaps suggestions on how to make things more clear.)

Thanks

Catpig

I was sitting in a stall when the door swung open and shut with a sigh of displaced air. I fumbled for the toilet paper, then stopped, listening. There it was again. Hardly audible over the florescent light's hum came the metallic whisper of scissors. Not something you usually hear in the john. There was no rustle of paper or cloth, and the soft snip, snip, snip continued with barely any pause.

I stepped out of the stall filled with curiosity, barely remembering to finish zipping up. It was Ian. He was leaning over the center sink, his face less than a foot from the mirror. One hand was catching handfuls of his short black hair, while the other wielded the scissors. He didn't seem awkward doing it, like I would be cutting my own hair. He just chopped away, like he didn't care how he'd look afterwards. Little pieces fell like someone put a shadow through a paper shredder. I could see his face in the mirror. It was blank enough for math class, except for a little frown, a grimace like between the eyes. But his eyes reflected wide and empty. They weren't really black, just dark, dark gray.

Then he saw me and scowled. After two more deliberate cuts he shoved the scissors in his pocket, slammed on the water, and walked out with it still running. When he passed me his eyes had sharpened to the color you get by pressing down as hard as you can with a pencil.

Back in class I sat staring at the back of his head, trying to remember for sure if the hair that hung to the middle of his left ear had really only brushed it's top that morning. So that's what the scissors were for.

Ian Matabe had only been going to our school for about a year. He moved from somewhere, I remember hearing something about new foster parents. I had a couple classes with him. He looked really Japanese, hair and eyes and real tan, and short. He talked normal though, and his height didn't slow him down much. He was the kind of short guy with something to prove, guys like, twice his size didn't even faze him. His face was almost pretty. All that saved him as a guy was the eyebrows. He was one of those people who look angry all the time, even when they're not. Maybe it was to make up for looking like a girl. His haircut was normal, short. He always seemed like an okay guy. Quiet maybe, but he was new.

I ran into him a few days back in the office. I was there delivering attendance sheets. He was looking unhappy and bruised, sprawled in a little plastic chair. One foot kicked at the rubber strip where the carpet met the wall.

"Hey Ian," I said. He relaxed a little.

"Hey."

"You look pretty messed up," I said.

He looked away. "You should see the other guy."

But he said it in the wrong tone of voice. Not the one you use for somebody you just beat up, more like the one for someone you know who was in a car crash. I might have said something else then, but he was called in. The sullen slid back over his face like a window shade, and he got up. As he turned I noticed a pair of little metal scissors in his back pocket. I found out later that he was in a fight with Joey Marten, who came out of it with a sprained neck. He probably had it coming. Joey's a dick. I still don't know what Ian's foster parents pulled to keep him from getting suspended.

I guess I should tell you something about myself, if you're still listening. Summers I stay with my dad up in Oregon, but during the school year I live with my mom. She's a Freelance Practitioner, which sounds a hell of a lot more professional than witch for hire. She doesn't deal with as many crackpots and jokers as you'd think either. That's cuz she put something in her ads that attracts the sincere people. She says I wouldn't understand it beyond that. Probably not. Anyways, the people who come to her usually have real problems, and sometimes serious ones. I mean _serious._ She doesn't like me involved with the really bad stuff, but with that kind of thing, shit happens. So I've seen a lot more than most people believe in. And been through a couple things that were totally, mindbendingly weird. Mom thinks I might have the spark, but I've been putting her off about testing for it. Magic isn't all cool light shows and bad poetry, let me tell you. I'm no wimp or anything, but I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, all sweaty and sick feeling, just from remembering things I've seen. But I have picked up that the occult is out there, and ignoring it won't protect you.

Anyways, all of that is basically just to say: most people who noticed someone's hair coming out longer after it was cut would just assume they remembered wrong. I didn't. In the next four days, Ian left every class I had with him to go to the bathroom at least once per day. The times I went into the bathroom after him, I found little pieces of hair in the sink. Also, he stopped hanging out with the group I sometimes eat lunch with. I'm pretty sure he started avoiding people in general. A day or two later he was absent. Quickly tapping into my mad espionage skillz, I offered to bring him his homework.


	2. Chapter 2 Homework

It was early evening when we pulled up in front of Ian's house. I could have biked there earlier, but I opted to wait until mom could give me a lift. I have reasons for being paranoid when I don't know what's going on. It was in the nice part of the hills, but not the really ritzy part. You had to go up a set of outside stairs painted white to get to the front door. The yard was full of ivy and these little yellow flowers.

A blonde woman opened the door. She looked a little younger than mom, and a lot yuppier. She was wearing a little white apron and under that pants and a shirt, office clothes. She smiled and asked what she could do for us. Mom smiled back and let me answer for myself. She always does.

My face burned. I suck at lying. I blush like a stoplight too, with every freckle showing. But I gave my cover story as smoothly as I could.

"Oh how considerate!" Ian's foster mom beamed. "Please come in. I'm sure Ian will appreciate it."

"I'm Betty by the way, Betty Sheldon," she told my mom. The door opened onto a stubby hallway, with a living room centered on a big screen TV behind it. Past that was a kitchen/dining room with glass sliding doors opening on a wooden deck. I could smell something chocolatey baking. Between the two rooms a staircase went up, covered in fuzzy white carpet. The whole place reminded me of a pricey motel, one of those houses where you don't want to touch anything It's so clean.

As I went into the living room a dark haired man came smiling out of the kitchen. I looked around the room while he shook hands with mom. There was a fireplace off to one side, with a bunch of pictures hung over it. In the middle the two of them smiled happily behind Ian someplace with trees. Ian had on an awkward camera smile, like he wished the person on the other end would point that thing somewhere else. It was hard to imagine Ian with his weird intensity in the same sentence as these people. They were just _so_ white bread Middle America.

Behind me Mr. Sheldon said, "I'll just pop up and see if he's ... well there he is now! Feeling better champ?"

"Sorta." Ian was standing on the stairs, squinting, wearing an oversized soccer t-shirt and sweats. He had red blanket marks on one cheek. His messy hair looked about chin length, and I caught one or two white strands. I was pretty sure they hadn't been there yesterday. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," I responded, trying not to stare. "You sick?"

"Not really. Just couldn't sleep."

"Here." I gave him the papers I'd brought. "It's 273 #'s 1-16 and 18-37."

"Thanks," he said, with all the enthusiasm math homework deserves. His fingernails when he reached out were ragged, like I'd caught him in the middle of cutting them.

His foster mom spoke up brightly. "If you have a minute, the cookies are almost done." "Chocolate chip," she confided in Ian. He smiled tiredly, more humoring her than the way I'd react to fresh cookies. Maybe he _was_ sick.

"Thanks a lot, but I'm afraid we have to get home," mom said. Betty gave us one last extra-bright smile before ducking into the kitchen.

"Your not missing much," Ian said quietly. "They're the kind out of a tube." Mr. Sheldon showed us out and waved cheerfully before closing it. Mom snorted softly.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"They just seem so _fake,_" she sighed.

I grinned. "I wonder what happened to spot."

"Hhmn?"

"Spot, or rover, or whatever. They gotta have a dog. It's the only thing that could possibly make up for the lack of white picket fences."

"Probably at the vet for cavities," mom replied wryly.


	3. Chapter 3 Cherry Bright

A few days later I stayed after school to work out a problem with one of my test grades. The corridors were empty by the time I left. I was rushing to try and make the bus when I was stopped short by a sharp, muffled hiss, practically at my elbow.

I whirled around, and found myself facing the door to a supply closet. I always figured those things were kept locked, but I tried the knob anyway. It turned. The narrow room inside was dim and cluttered. Somewhere in the middle, Ian was sitting on a box. He turned away from me fast as the door opened.

"Ian?"

"What?" His voice was flat, unreadable.

"Are you okay?" The door clicked shut behind me as I stepped forwards. Whoops.

Ian looked at me over one shoulder, thinking. He must of reached a decision, because then he slid the rest of himself around to face me. Candy bright blood welled from a line as long as my finger on his forearm. His other hand curled loosely around those same scissors. The lower blade was stained, flecked with red like a Christmas cookie. My stomach clenched.

"Holy shit," I heard myself blurt, "What are you _doing_?!" Ian's eyes were on his arm as he rubbed the scissors clean and tucked them away.

"It'll heal," he said quietly.

"Jesus Christ, that's no reason to-"

He cut me off. "No, look." He held his arm out to me slowly, trying not to spill the blood and almost succeeding. "I did this one this morning, by accident." A pale line like an old scar ran across his outstretched palm.

"What's going on?" I said, trying to get my mind around the implications. It came out almost a whisper.

"How the fuck should I know?!" Ian's said harshly. He dropped his arm, apparently forgetting the blood. It dripped down his wrist in long skinny threads.

"I was doing fine in Chicago. I had a girlfriend; I had a fucking 3.4 GPA! And now..." He bared his ragged fingernails like claws. "Look at this! Last night I chipped the nail clippers on 'em. There's a fucking crack right in the fucking metal! And you remember when I fought Joey?" His voice dropped abruptly to a hoarse whisper. "Man, I almost killed him. I'm serious. I swear to God I was an inch from breaking his neck. I knew just how too, it would have been so _easy_..." He stared at his hands like he didn't know what they were. After a minute he closed his eyes and gave his head a quick little half shake, but his voice kept coming, like now that he'd started talking he didn't know how to stop. "I knew it was you when you opened the door. I didn't have to look, I just knew. And for months now I keep having these dreams..."

"What kind of dreams?" I asked, dazed.

"I dream of killing," He said. "Ripping people open and breaking bones with my hands. Sometimes they're people. Sometimes I don't know what the hell they are. Everyone's wearing these weird Japanese clothes, and I'm bleeding, lots, all over the place, but I don't care. Sometimes my girlfriend's there. Sometimes she's bleeding too. Sometimes I think she's dying, she's bleeding so much. And so is ... there's this other girl, Japanese, with long hair, and it hurts just to look at her. But I have to keep fighting. There's just so much _blood_..." Ian finally looked up at me, raw and appalled. "What the fuck is wrong with me?!"

"I don't know," I said helplessly. "I-maybe you should talk to my mom."

"Huh?" Ian blinked, confused.

"My mom is, well, she does sort of alternative medicine. Maybe she could help." A guy's got to be pretty desperate to call in his mother.

Ian's eyes narrowed. "She's not like some kind of shrink, is she? I'm not just going nuts. This shit is actually happening! You saw, with my hair. And there's white in it again, right? And look." He rubbed the half dried blood roughly from his forearm, uncovering a thin scab that looked at least three days old.

"No!" I said. "I mean, that's not what I meant. I know your not making it up. My mom's not a shrink. She just knows a lot about really weird stuff. Stuff like this. I seriously think she could help you." Ian was looking noncommittal. "Just think about it, okay?"

"How can you tell if someone is possessed?"

Mom set down her fork and looked up from her spaghetti. "Possessed?"

"Yeah," I said, "like by a demon or something."

"It depends," she said slowly, "Why do you ask?"

I took a deep breath. "You remember Ian, the guy we took homework to?" I told the whole story, ending with the scene in the supply closet. When I was done she let out her breath with a sigh.

"That would explain why they couldn't find it!"

"Huh?" I inquired.

"A while back the Clave got wind of an unsavory summoning. They busted pretty much all the participants, but couldn't find hide nor hair of the beastie itself. I wish you had told me sooner. At least it sounds like he's still in control." The Clave is an organization that mom's loosely associated with. They're like the magic police, but mom won't tell me more then that until I commit to the art.

"So it _is_ a demon?" I asked, lightheaded. In case you're wondering, yes, demons are as nasty as you'd think.

Mom frowned. "Can't know for sure until I've had a look at him." She paused, then went on briskly, "How about this: I'll come to pick you up after school tomorrow, and we'll see if we can't run into this Ian boy. Then I'll know, and we can arrange for back up if we need it." I nodded, relieved.


	4. Chapter 4 Nightmares

My relief lasted until I woke up at midnight, and dragged mom out to Ian's house.

I couldn't sit still. It was like something in the air kept grabbing at me. I had this awful feeling we were already too late. It was dark. Very dark. There are other parts of town where nightlife means more than owls and roaches, but mom's headlights carved out the only visibility on the streets we took. The air was barely cold, but I was shivering anyway. We drove in silence. A faded porch light marked Ian's house, the rest of the block had turned theirs off. A cloud of little bugs swarmed it, making crazy spirals of dotted line when they got right in front of the glow. The front door was cracked open. Inside was dark.

Mom paused at the top of the stairs in front of the door, clutching her purse. It was her biggest one, and she had it loaded with all the big guns: the heavy-duty crystals, her rowan wand, her rune knife, the obsidian mirror, the jade bells. After a moment's hesitation, she laid her hand on the door without knocking. Then she looked over her shoulder and gestured with her head for me to get back in the car. I clenched my teeth against the fear creeping up my throat, and shook my head. Mom glared. After two silent minutes she gave in with a sigh. Before opening the door she pressed something into my hand. An amulet. The turtle one. She must have been as scared as I was.

She paused in the entryway just long enough to flip the light switch up and down without affect. Then she was moving into the living room. Her hand had slipped into her purse. I squeezed my amulet and followed. The living room was dimly lit by light coming in the windows of the kitchen beyond.

I gingerly skirted the long, low coffee table, and nearly fell, tripping on something. Closer inspection revealed the inconveniently placed object to be Betty Sheldon's head. Her face wore an expression of mild concern. Her neck had not been cut so much as shredded. I took an abrupt step backwards, and my adjusting eyes found the rest of her body, laid out across from the head on top of a wide black stain. Nearby was her husband, on his knees with his forehead against the wall, like he was praying to something embedded in the plaster. Pale bone showed through the gaping wetness of his back. I stood mute, wishing I didn't feel too empty to throw up. Mom made as though to move towards me. Then her gaze followed mine, and she cursed softly.

"They weren't real," a low voice said. We both jumped, but mom came down armed. It took a minute to spot Ian. He was sitting on the floor in the kitchen by the glass doors, looking out. I could make out his hair by the white streaking it, falling past his shoulders.

"Ian", I mouthed. I couldn't force out enough air to give the word sound.

"No," he said. His eyes flashed gold in the light as he turned his head to look at me. "Ian's dead." Then he turned away again. "He's been dead for a year now. I'm all that's left of him." Mom drew her dagger and held it low, crossed with the wand in her other hand. It doesn't look like much, but that's her battle stance. I wondered what I would do when the fighting started. She hadn't given me a weapon, just a ward.

"If you aren't Ian," Mom said much more calmly than she had any right to be, "then who and what are you?"

He didn't look away from the doors this time. "Hell if I know. Up till yesterday I thought I _was _Ian. I still remember everything, breaking my leg at that soccer tournament when I was twelve, the cat my second foster mom wouldn't let me keep after it bit her, the first time I kissed Julie. All of it. But now I remember standing in the circle that brought me here, only a month before school started this fall, with all these robed fuckers smelling like bad incense and fear, watching them burn him alive. Ian I mean. Julie probably wouldn't have any idea who I am if she saw me."

"So," said mom, edging in front of me while she talked, "You are not Ian, but you have his memories and not your own?" Ian, well, not Ian I guess, pushed himself around to face us, leaning his back on the glass. He looked the same as he always had, except for the eyes and the hair.

"Pretty much. I dream though... From what I can tell, I wasn't a very nice person." He smiled bitterly, flashing too-long canines.

"You are the creature that was summoned," Mom said like a challenge. I wished she hadn't. I didn't want to cut to the fight scene yet; I wanted to find out what the hell was going on.

He frowned at her. "Yeah. I guess I am. But they fucked up. They couldn't handle me. So then they thought they would just tuck me away all nice and neat into somebody else's life, Complete with cute little foster parents." His voice was rising, sounding as much desperate as angry, but I wasn't sure mom caught that. She was starting to lift the crossed wand and dagger in front of her chest.

The guy I had known as Ian suddenly went from snarling to just sounding tired and irritable. "What are you gonna do about it anyway, huh? Whatever I am, that whole room fulla evil wizards or whatever couldn't handle me, and neither could their dummies." He ran a hand through his long hair and then dropped it quick as soon as he noticed what he was doing. His fingernails were long and pointed and stained dark in the dim light. I caught mom's arm before she could attack him. She hissed at me to get back. I hung on. Maybe it was stupid, but it was still Ian. Alright, maybe not the real Ian, but the only one I ever knew.

"Hang on," I said, mostly to mom, but it applied to both of them. "What did you mean, they weren't real?"

He was watching us warily now. "I mean they weren't human. Maybe not even alive; they were mostly made out of mud. Least that's what they smelled like."

I looked at mom. She was busy looking at not-Ian.

"What if it's true?" I whispered. Her eyes sort of twitched in my direction without actually shifting, and she frowned. I think she was wishing she had left me in the car.

"Well?" I said a little louder. "What if it is?"

Mom clenched her teeth and shifted her lower jaw, the way she used to when I would accidentally knock something into the toilet. Not-Ian was sitting perfectly still except for his eyes. They were going back and forth between me and mom like a nervous cat's. Except he didn't look nervous, he looked like he was plotting an escape route. Or an attack.

Mom took a step forwards. Not-Ian leaned forward and pulled one leg under him, poised to leap up. His whole body was tensed up, tight like a spring. Mom turned around, putting her back to him while she peered into the murky room behind us. She was still standing a little between me and the creature that was my classmate, but suddenly I felt a lot more vulnerable. It didn't help that this was my idea. Not-Ian looked surprised, then settled back into wariness. He never really relaxed. I noticed myself smiling weakly, that pacifying expression that everyone discovers in jr. high never really works.

Mom half turned her face towards me, then went back to scanning the darkness. Her lips were moving silently, like someone rehearsing lines, and the lowered wand was tracing lazy spirals at knee level. That's when I realized that she was using me as an alarm system. She couldn't see Not-Ian, but she could see me out of the corner of her eye, and she was figuring if anything happened I'd react. Somehow it wasn't very comforting.

Then a trace of power shivered through the air, like soft static. Mom tries to be discrete, but it's always there if you know what to look for. Immediately Not-Ian's eyes widened. He came to his feet so fast it was like he hadn't moved, he was just there, baring teeth. Whatever my reaction was, mom whirled back around and the little wisp of power snapped off like a radio.

"What are you doing?!" Not-Ian snarled.

"I am trying," mom replied in a crisp tone no more friendly, "To see if your _diagnosis_ of your late foster parents has any baring in fact. Do you mind?" They stared at each other for a long moment while I tried to will the tension in the room back down from the breaking point telepathically. Maybe I was finally developing those psychic powers I've been wanting since I found out that some people (notably my sixth grade teacher) actually take 'guess what number I'm thinking of' seriously as a way to distribute privileges. Or maybe Not-Ian had had enough wanton slaughter for one night. Whatever he was thinking, after what seemed like forever he leaned against the glass door and folded his arms. Mom gave him one last, long look, and then turned back, only halfway this time. I tried not to think about what I would do if I was Not-Ian and I'd been lying about the mud thing.

It only took mom a minute. Then she sighed and let the charm fade, and turned back biting the corner of her lip.

"Well?" I asked breathlessly. Not-Ian was frowning and rocking slowly back and forth on the balls of his feet. Mom nodded. I let out an exasperated breath. I swear sometimes she's confusing on purpose. Must think it makes her seem mysterious or something.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded.

"They are, were, some kind of simulacra. It would take considerably more work to say how they were made, but off the cuff I'd say they were composed of some human components, and some kind of base filler."

"mud," Not-Ian said. He had sagged back against the glass, looking drained. Relief maybe. I had a pang of sympathy for him; I bet he figured no one would ever believe that part. The cops sure wouldn't.

There was a moment of awkward silence. Mom was probably trying to figure where the brutal murder of

simu-whatevers fits in the scale of things-we-should-be-upset-about. Myself I was so relieved I could have pissed my pants. If I didn't look at them and kept thinking of them as magic mud robots, it made the whole situation a hell of a lot less nauseating. Including what I was about to suggest.

"Hey mom," I said as casually as I could. Casual is good for requests you can't justify rationally. "I think we should take him home with us."


	5. Chapter 5 Stranger

Both of them stared at me like I was on crack. You'd think I'd get more sympathy out of Not-Ian, it was him I was trying to help. But it was mom I was worried about.

The best thing about my mom, as a mom, is that she maintains a certain amount of respect for my intelligence. So instead of explaining in detail all the problems with my obviously drug induced suggestion, (as if I couldn't figure them out for myself) she crossed her arms and said, "why?"

"Um, well if we leave him here the cops will come after him, and that's bad for everybody." One of the first rules of supernatural stuff is that you're supposed to keep a low profile. And call me crazy, but I had a hunch if the cops went after Not-Ian the next mauled corpses on the floor wouldn't be dirt puppets.

Mom frowned and fiddled with her dagger. I hoped that she wouldn't ask why we weren't just handing his illegally summoned butt over to the Clave. My luck was running good.

"You feel certain about this?" Mom asked. I nodded. She sighed and nodded permission. As she tucked the wand and the dagger back into her purse, I heard her mumbled something about "from the mouth" in a rueful tone. Score.

Not-Ian was looking at both of us now, like he was thinking maybe the crack addiction ran in the family.

"Just like that?" he said. "I just ripped up my foster parents and now you're gonna take me home with you? What the hell is this? Why should I trust you?"

I held out my hands. "Hey, chill alright? It's not like you killed _people_ right? You gotta trust somebody. We can help you."

Okay, maybe I was exaggerating on that last one. I really had no idea what we were getting into. But I figured at that point just a bed in a house with no dead bodies counted as help.

Not-Ian frowned at me, scratching one temple with a blood stained claw. "Maybe I can see you doing this," he said at last. "You've always been fucking nuts. But why is she going along with it?"

"Oh, that." I grinned crookedly. "It's a spiritualist thing. It's like her good deed for the day." Mom made a face. She hates it when I oversimplify her internal path. Actually, 'from the mouth' is 'from the mouth of babes.' It's this personal belief she has that sometimes when kids are sure about important stuff without knowing why, it's an omen or something. Particularly me, since she figures I've got potential gifts and all. Most of mom's beliefs are personalized, her path is only loosely based on Wicca. It can look pretty weird if you're not used to it, but it must work for her cuz she's respected in her field. I just think it's too bad she never decides I'm speaking 'from the mouth' when I explain what a waste of time homework is. Anyways, I figured right then wasn't a good time to lecture Not-Ian about omens.

Not-Ian bit his lip. He looked at us, then he looked around the kitchen. Finally he nodded. "Ok. I'll go with you. You just better not try to trap me or wipe my mind again or anything."

"Course not," I said, relieved.

Mom wasn't feeling so generous. "We will offer you no harm as long as you offer us none." The two of them locked eyes, and then nodded slowly at the same time.

So we left. Maybe we should have picked up some clothes for him first, maybe that would have just tipped off the cops. We didn't even bring it up. None of us felt like sticking around and admiring Not-Ian's handiwork.

Mom did turn off the outside lights. In the near total dark Not-Ian's eyes gleamed like low moons. You know, like when you're looking at the moon through all the pollution, so it looks yellow. At the front door Mom stopped and pulled a handkerchief out of her purse. Using it to cover her hand she flipped the lock tab in the inside knob, then wiped off the outside one. Before closing the door she fished out a little plastic vial. It was the kind perfume samples used to come in, she has a collection. She dumped out what looked like bluish salt into her hand and murmured over it in Portuguese. (There's nothing real special about Portuguese, mom just says if you're going to use language as a focus, it's easier if it's not you're first. Something about the way you have to think to use a second language. She picked Portuguese because she could get classes but not many people around here speak it.) Anyways, she said something in Portuguese and then blew the salt-stuff back in through the doorway. Power whispered in the air for a minute, and I could hear faint stirrings inside, like a soft wind. Then she closed the door.

"What was that?" Not-Ian asked.

"To cover our footprints," Mom said shortly.

I sat next to Not-Ian in the backseat as mom drove us home.

After awhile I asked him, "Hey, uh, are you hurt or anything?" It occurred to me that I couldn't really call him 'Not-Ian' out loud.

"Huh?" he said, turning his head from the window. His eyes did that cat-flashy thing again. That was going to take getting used to.

"Oh. No. I'm fine."

"What should we call you, since you might be staying with us for a while?"

He shrugged and turned back to the window.

"I figured you wouldn't still want to be called-"

"No. I don't."

"So it could be anything. Like we could just call you John Smith or like Steve Jones or something. Or you could pick something cool like Cobra or Renegade or-"

"No! Don't be a dumbass."

"Xenon," mom said suddenly.

"Huh?" I responded intelligently.

Not-Ian frowned. It was becoming his favorite expression. "Why?"

"It means 'stranger.'"

I thought that was a little harsh, but after a minute Xenon, formerly known as Not-Ian, shrugged and went back to his window.


	6. Chapter 6 Domesticity

When we got home mom had me dig a futon out of the closet and made up a bed the floor of her office. Xenon crashed right away, he didn't even wash his hands. Mom and I stood in the hallway outside looking at each other.

Finally she ruffled my hair and said, "I think you should stay home from school tomorrow."

I was woken up by the sound of running water. Our pipes make this moaning noise, like the souls of the damned being woken up to early. Mom says it doesn't count as a problem if the water still runs. I turned over and tried to go back to sleep. Almost an hour later with no end in sight, I gave up.

Mom was a sitting at the table in her bathrobe, drinking coffee and looking sleep deprived. I poured myself a big bowl of the sugariest thing we've got in the house (frosted flakes, which I have to buy with my own money cuz mom's such a health nut) and sat down across from her. I munched. She sipped. The shower kept running. By the clock I could have made it to school early, except, oh wait! I wasn't going. Hilarious.

"Shouldn't the hot water have run out by now?" I said.

Mom looked up from her mug. "Yes."

I ate my cereal. Mom sipped. The shower kept running.

I finished my cereal and drank the sugared milk. Mom sipped. The shower kept running.

"So," I said, swirling the soggy crumbs around the bottom of my bowl, "What are we gonna do?"

"Didn't have that part of the plan figured out yet, eh?" Mom responded dryly. I went back to messing with my crumbs. The shower ran.

Just as the drops of milk in the bottom of the bowl were beginning to congeal, the water shut off abruptly. I sat up straight, spoon still poised. Maybe three minutes later the bathroom door opened and Xenon came out. He was wearing my sweats, the set he hadn't gotten around to changing into the night before. His head was wrapped in two towels, so none of his hair showed. His eyes were no less weird in full light. If anything, more so. I could almost swear his pupils had changed shape.

"Hi," I said, smiling too big, like he had caught me doing something wrong. He grunted, his gold eyes flicking from me to mom and back again.

"Well," mom said abruptly. "Now that your settled we'll have to see what to do about you." I winced at the wording, but Xenon's expression didn't change, no more or less wary. He sidled into the kitchen and leaned his back against the counter, facing us. On either side he braced with his hands, his long fingernails clicking against the cabinet paneling. They looked pointier then yesterday. He cocked his head a little to one side, making the towel slip, and looked at mom.

She took an overly casual sip of coffee, and continued. "The first thing would be to find out what exactly you are."

"You don't know either, huh?" Xenon said dryly. It was the first time he spoke that day, and I couldn't figure out if he was sorta hoarse, or if that extra little roughness in his voice was something else.

"We thought you were human." Mom responded crisply.

He snorted. "That was real observant of you."

"well, human but possessed. By a demon or something," I put in in our defense.

"But it looks like the truth is exactly the opposite." Mom mused.

"So I'm a demon possessed by a real guy. Except he's dead. Great. Just fucking wonderful. Sounds like something out of a bad goth poem."

"Maybe a demon." Mom said with exaggerated patience. "We don't know. We'll have to do some research. You're Japanese, right? That's a place to start. Something from Japan."

"I'm from Fresno," Xenon said flatly.

Mom just looked at him. There was silence for a count of three blinks, and then she said, "No, you're not. Ian was."

He opened his mouth, stopped, shut it again. His weird eyes slid down to look at his hands, going white-knuckled on the counter. He was frowning so hard I was afraid he would lash out, break something. Or really snap and start crying. Which would be worse. The counter creaked loudly, not a happy sound. And then Xenon turned away from us to snatch an apple out of the bowl. When her turned back he seemed mostly absorbed in biting into it. Didn't rinse it. Mom's always on me about washing the pesticides off, but she didn't say anything.

"So," Xenon said, his voice muffled through the mouthful of apple, "You figure I'm some kinda samurai demon or something cuz I'm Japanese?"

"It's a place to start," mom repeated, and now she was sounding defensive. "You don't fit the description of the de-the entities that I'm familiar with. The ones associated with this culture. Anyway, for the time being you should stay here, inside. You two can check the internet. I'll head to the library." Mom gulped the last of her coffee, set the mug down with an assertive clink, and strode briskly out of the room. Xenon watched her go a little wide eyed, and then turned to me. I shrugged.

"So, um, you want anything for breakfast?"

Mom leaned her head back in the room. "I do have some questions for you before I go."


	7. Chapter 7 The Name of The Dog

It was kind of a relief when mom left the house. Xenon didn't take well to questioning. Not that he got scary, he just stared at the floor and answered in as few words as possible. He didn't want to talk about his dreams. He didn't want to talk about what he could remember from being summoned. He _really_ didn't want to talk about killing his foster parents. Actually I could have done without that part too. I slipped off to 'brush my teeth' around about when mom was asking how many swings the decapitation took. One, apparently. Barehanded. For the first time I started seriously wondering about what I had brought into our house.

I made faces at myself in the bathroom mirror. Too late now. He's here. God, he took her _head_ off with…too late now. It's _Ian_. He wouldn't hurt us. I mean…ok so it's not, but it _is._ They were only golems. He wouldn't hurt us. We're helping him, he's not going to hurt us. He's not. The people who live next door to serial killers never see it coming. I got out of the bathroom before I started visualizing the bodies again.

When I came back in on the interrogation mom was asking if there was any other physical changes this morning. Ian-Xenon wrapped the towels tighter and looked stubborn. Mom finally threw her hands up and left before she had a chance to strangle him. He looked ready to stick his tongue out after the door closed behind her. It was kind of funny actually. I just can't stay scared of him when he's actually in the room.

"Fine!" Xenon snapped at where mom wasn't anymore. And he pulled the towels off his head with a jerk. His hair was wet and tangled but even so it came down to his waist. I'd never seen a guy with hair that long. It looked…weird. Like some kind of ratty cape or something. And now his hair was mostly white, just splattered a little with black like ink drips on paper. And to top it off his ears were pointy. Not like big ol' spock ears or something, just pointy. My first thought was, man. I wouldn't have the nerve to walk around school looking like that. But then, he better not anyway, huh?

"you wanna grab something to eat?" I suggested. "The computer's back in the other room."

When we got to the office Xenon seemed absorbed with pulling the tangles out of his crazy-long hair, so I sat down at the desk and fired up Google. I tried to start general, since mom had said we couldn't even be sure he _was_ a demon. I jumped about a foot when Xenon spoke up right behind my shoulder.

"Godzilla? Aren't you supposed to be doing something useful?"

"I'm working on it, ok? That's just the first few links. Wait, here's something."

"An ad for a screen saver?"

"It's got some more specific words, alright? Lessee, "a Rokurokubi is a timid demon-" well never mind that. Bakemono, obake, yokai, yurei, kappa, tengu, nukekubi, any of this ringing any bells?"

Xenon shrugged, frowning at the screen.

"Seems like bakemono is kind of generic," I mused. "Obake …hm, that's ghosts. You're not much like a ghost. You're all…physical and stuff. That and being out in the daytime like this."

"I don't get it," Xenon said. "I mean, Google? Since your mom is some kind of witch or something- uh, no offense man."

I shrugged. "S'ok, that's pretty much what she is."

"Anyway when she said 'research' I was thinking more like…"

I grinned. "Like some underground occult library with torches you turn over to make the walls move? Not on our budget."

Xenon's mouth twitched almost like his sense of humor wasn't completely dead after all. "Actually I was thinking something like a crystal ball."

"Weirdly enough, folklore tends to be pretty reliable. You just have to know how to sort out the bs. Anyways… yokai: oh what? Score! A dictionary/encyclopedia deal. Now we're getting somewhere."

I skimmed down the page of text. "Sounds like 'yokai' is also sort of generic. Kappa: lives in rivers, monkey shaped, green skin, turtle shell, likes cucumbers, vampiric, sucks out people's blood through their buttho-"

I became almost physically aware of Xenon's death glare. The weirdo eyes are really good for that it seems.

I coughed and moved on. "There's a bunch of other words here, under 'yokai.' Mononoke, oni, yamanba, yama-ubu. Huh. The last two are mountain hags. Guess we can skip that."

"Ya think?" Xenon had kicked back and was looking bored. You'd think he'd care more, it was his species we were looking for.

I ignored him and continued. "Oni: ogres. Lessee, strong, tough, um… vicious, … oh here's a picture." I hit the link. Xenon barely looked up. "Well…the hair's similar, but other than that…you aren't planning on growing horns are you?"

"No."

"Mononoke seems to be…a princess. In a movie."

Xenon rolled his eyes. "I look like a princess to you?"

I smiled. "Maybe if you did something with your hair…"

"Bite me."

"You don't have any, um, weird marks on your neck, do you?"

"Marks? Like what?"

"Red glyphs, letters, I guess. Probably Japanese ones."

"No I-hang on. Where on the neck?"

"Around the base I guess. Oh here, it says they're on the back."

Xenon looked at me for a minute, then he caught his hair up in one hand, twisted it out of the way, and turned to face away from me. I leaned over to look.

"Nope." It was kind of a relief. Marks like that meant nukekubi, and I could live without any floating heads. No red glyphs. But he did have-hmm.

I did a search for white hair (Japanese). Anime, weird teenage girl fashion trend, anime, anime, and here we go.

"Here's something. Kitsune, shape-shifting fox people. Says here that they sometimes have white or silver hair as a sign of power. Do you have a tail?"

"My ass is absolutely none of your business."

I snorted.

He continued on a more thoughtful vein, "I don't know about this shape-shifting thing. I haven't turned into anything else, just, y'know, this." He gestured vaguely at his face and head with one clawed hand.

"Hey, you were magically stuck in a human form, right? And these critters hang out in human form sometimes. Sounds like these ones can make themselves look like specific people, or even things, like trees and stuff. Creepy. Let me know if you start being able to do that."

Xenon grunted. He sounded unconvinced. I spun the office chair to face him. "Look, the hair, the eyes, the claws, it all fits with an animal theme. And foxes aren't the only kind they've got. Here, there's also badgers, snakes, raccoons, spiders, and sometimes cats and dogs. Hey, maybe you're a cat. You kind of look like one."

Xenon glared. Which, confidentially, made him look more like a cat.

"Y'know," I said. "The eyes."

"I. Am. Not. A. Cat."

"Ok ok, whatever. Hey, if you'd rather be a dog or something fine. Knock yourself out."

Xenon kinda growled, and then he said something that, I swear to god, sounded like: "Hi, inoo no hogah ee-des."

"What?" I responded intelligently.

Xenon looked at me like I was stupid, and said, "Yeah, I would."

"No, no, what did you just say?"

In the annoyed tone of voice you use to repeat things for dense people, Xenon said, "I said 'yeah, I would rather be a dog.'"

"No you didn't. You said 'high eenoo no hogisomething."

Xenon went very still, staring at me with those gold eyes. "Inu," he said softly. "Not eenoo."

"That's Japanese, isn't it? I didn't know you could speak Japanese."

"Me neither." His eyes slid away to the left, to stare at the printer.

He didn't look very happy about it, so I resisted the urge to ask him to say something else in Japanese. There was silence for a minute. The computer hummed, and then started to fade into the screen saver. I twitched the mouse.

"Inu means dog?"

"Yeah."

"Ok, inu it is."

Xenon looked up, startled. Then suddenly he started to smile.

"Yeah."

The last time I saw him smile was at school. Seeing him chill a little made me feel like maybe everything wasn't going totally to hell after all.

"Hey Inu," I said, "Pass the Fritos."


	8. Chapter 8 That Thing with Trees

Since he seemed to like the nickname, I kept calling Xenon 'Inu.' Mom frowned the first time she heard it.

"Why did you call him that?"

I shrugged. "It's kind of a joke. It was one of the things he said when he started spouting Japanese. See it means dog and he had just said he'd rather…ok so you kind of had to be there. Anyway it's just a nickname."

She nodded and didn't say anything else, but she didn't look happy. The library had yielded a lot of the same stuff the Internet did. Vengeful ghosts, lumpy red ogres, butt-sucking turtle-monkeys, hags, and shape-shifting animals. I'd still been thinking cats and foxes whatever 'Inu' thought, but mom disagreed. She said those animals were mostly about tricks and illusions. The dog profile fit Xenon better, and if it felt right to him, well, that's that then. She didn't seem real jazzed about that either, and that one she actually explained, quietly and when Xenon/Inu wasn't in the room.

I had been thinking in terms of Western dog stories, y'know like Lassie, loyalty and all that. There are stories like that in Japan too, dogs that kill monsters and companions to samurai. But the dogs that take human form are something else again. They're called 'inugami'. You summon one when you want to get back at somebody so bad that just killing him isn't good enough. And even then it's not a very good idea. The inugami are supposed to be so violent they freak out even the people who wanted to see blood in the first place. And that's just the best-case scenario, where the summoner is well prepared enough to keep control. I was not reassured.

Mom looked at me very seriously and she said, "If there's trouble I'll take care of it. I won't let anything happen to you."

I sort of smiled and nodded. It's not that I don't trust mom, and I know from hard experience how powerful she is. But it really wasn't me I was worried about. Inu had no problem with me. Right then I was hoping mom knew what she was talking about with all that 'from the mouth' stuff, because I was starting to seriously wonder what I had gotten us into.

I stayed home with Xenon-Inu for two more days after that first. I made half-hearted attempts at doing more research, but ended up mostly watching TV. Inu was no help. As far as I could tell he didn't change anymore physically, and he didn't say anything else in Japanese. Mostly he lounged around and avoided my mom.

In the middle of the second day I went looking for him for some reason or other, and I couldn't find him. I'm pretty level headed most of the time, but after going through the whole house I had visions of our entire neighborhood torn to shreds dancing through my head. I got to the backyard half panicked, and then something made me look up.

Inu was there, sprawled out on the roof. The night before (after a painfully awkward dinner) he had twisted his hair up into a lump and stuffed it under a knit beanie. He was still wearing it, even though it was warm out. I couldn't figure out how he had gotten up there. The only thing I could think of was climbing the big tree, but then you'd have to jump like eight feet straight across. I yelled to him, and he got up all slow, and then stepped right off the edge of the roof. We've only got one story, but Christ! I almost choked. Meanwhile Inu landed in a crouch, stood, and walked right by me into the house. Totally casual. I still say he seems like a cat.

That night I couldn't sleep. Comes from spending all day sitting around watching basketball. Around three am I got hungry and headed to the kitchen.

Xenon was still using a futon in the office. When I passed the door I could hear him in there, muttering in his sleep and making these weird whining noises. I thought about going in, but I didn't. For one thing, a guy's got to have his privacy. For another, I didn't want to be standing next to the vengeance demon when he gets startled out of a nightmare. Seen that movie, no thank you.

Nothing interesting happened the next day, but I kept thinking about those noises. They had sounded like somebody stepping on a puppy. Every time Inu was in the same room I would wonder what he had been dreaming about. I didn't get up the nerve to say anything until evening.

The colors in the sky were just starting to fade. I found Inu sitting in the tree out back. He was up a little past where the branches got too thin to logically hold his weight, and sprawled out like I would on the couch. I've been climbing that tree since I was six, so it wasn't hard. I could even get up fairly close.

"Hey Inu." I said.

"Hey." He turned his head, but not quite enough to see me. He was still wearing that beanie.

"Isn't it too hot in that?" I asked.

He shrugged.

I tried again. "Hey, so, have you remembered anything else?"

He grunted, and then was silent for so long that I thought that's all I was going to get, and maybe I should try talking about soccer instead.

I almost missed it when he started talking. His voice was low. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I don't want to remember?"

That stopped me cold. "You don't _want_ to? Why?"

"I liked my life, ok? It was nothing fabulous, but…God. I was always thinking about how things could be better, y'know? Like if my parents were still around, or if my foster parents were really rich, or if I got famous or something. I always knew there were people worse off, much worse off, but I never really stopped to think about what I _had_. I may not have a family anymore, but I did. I remember them. They were good y'know? They were a good family. And I've got friends, and there was Julie, even if she's not here, in town. I've always been safe, never had to worry about just surviving with all my limbs intact. Always had everything I need even if it's not everything I want. And I go to school and I walk down the hall and some people say 'hi' and some people don't even look up, but nobody thinks I shouldn't be there. Nobody…look, I know they're not my memories alright? I know that wasn't me. But-well It's like it might as well have been, y'know? It's all I've got. And I get the feeling in my other life, my real life, I didn't have any of that stuff."

We were quiet for a long time. I didn't know what to say. Me and mom had never really come out and said what we were going to do with our guest. Could he just stay, with the cops and the Clave after him? What kind of life could he have here, being what he was? In the back of my head I had always sort of assumed we would eventually be sending him home. Back where he had been summoned from. But what if that meant literally sending him to Hell? I wasn't sure I could do that to Inu-Ian, even if it was where he was from. Inu started talking again suddenly.

"But it's more than that really. It's…it's me. I knew who I was, and I was fine with it. There was stuff I didn't like, but it was all ok y'know, I could live with it. And then it's like, 'no, that's not you at all. You're somebody else.' Fine, whatever. But, what if this other person, this guy I'm supposed to be, what if he isn't who I want to be?"

I remembered him saying something once about the dreams, and from what he could tell he hadn't been a nice person. I swallowed.

"If that's how you feel now, you can't have been that bad," I said, not sure how much I believed it.

"That's not what your mom thinks," Inu said, flashing fangs in a bitter smile. They glittered in the low light. "She thinks I'm a monster."

I frowned. It would be lying to say he was wrong. But at the same time, she was helping him. Mom would never have let him into our house if she thought he was nothing but a demon.

"What do you think?" I asked.

Ian/Xenon/Inu stared up at the sky, and spoke so softly I wasn't sure I was hearing him right. "I don't know. I just don't know."

**Angst ahoy, huh?**

**Well I have the next couple chapters written, I just need to edit so they should be going up soon. I know things have been overly tranquil, the next chapter should remedy that ;)**

**After that it sort of depends on whether there's any interest in the story continuing. Let me know what you think.**


	9. Chapter 9 Busted

The next day Mom made me go back to school. She said any longer than that and we'd need a doctor's note. Everybody there was talking about Ian; he had been absent for two days and the office couldn't reach his foster parents. Yesterday his house was swarming with cops. I steeled myself for a description of three day old torn up corpses, but it didn't come. The police hadn't found anybody. In class I felt like a spy, playing at being normal with all these dangerous secrets in my head. It didn't help me much. I told Mr. McGillicutty that Arch Duke Ferdinand started World War III. Maybe my friends thought I was still sick.

During lunch a cop in uniform and a guy in plain clothes came over to where my friends and I sit, around the tree behind the cafeteria. The guy in khaki smiled a lot and talked like he was trying not to make us nervous. I stammered and sweated so much I was sure the policemen could smell my guilt. Fortunately for me, some of my other friends got nervous too. Especially Mark. Mark tried pot _once_ and ever since he's been positive that any cop who looks at him twice is going to find out and arrest him. For the first time ever, I thanked God that Mark is a dweeb.

When I got home mom was fixing supper. I suddenly wondered if she had been home all day, just to keep Inu from being alone in our house. I slung my backpack on the table like she's always telling me not to.

"There were cops at school today. They figured out that Ian, um, Xenon, is missing."

"Did anything happen?"

I shrugged. "They asked our group some questions, just cuz we're his friends. Just general stuff, not like they were suspicious of anything."

"Just one missing person?"

"Yeah. I guess they might be looking for his foster parents too. They went into the house but it sounds like they didn't find them."

Mom frowned. "They weren't exactly subtle when we left. Somebody else must have been in there." She snorted suddenly. "What a cut-rate cover. They must not even have had jobs, or they would have been missed days ago." She went back to cutting carrots. We're the only people I know who put vegetables in spaghetti sauce. "Did the police ask any questions that struck you as peculiar?"

"Not really." I munched on one of the little carrot circles she'd already cut. "It was all pretty standard. Where's In-um, Xenon?"

"Out back. Has he said anything to you? He'll barely talk to me at all."

"Well…sorta. I get the feeling he's really not happy about this whole turning into a monster thing."

Mom blinked. "He's not really turning into anything. His human identity was a façade."

"Yeah, but, it seemed real to him."

The knife hesitated mid-carrot. "I suppose it would, wouldn't it?" She said at last.

I remembered something. "Oh hey, y'know about the questions, the cops? They did seem really interested in if he or the foster parents were religious, and what kind. They kept asking if Ian had every said anything about it, if he went to church, if he was anti-Christian, stuff like that."

"They must have found something fishy. Did any of your other friends notice the signs the way you did?"

"Huh? Oh you mean the haircutting and stuff. Nope. I don't think so anyways. Carly and James did mention the way he was pulling away from eveyone last week, but that's all."

"Well, in that case-" Suddenly mom stiffened. Her head turned to look at the front door, and a split second later the knock came. I gulped. The stuff mom can sense, she can usually sense at more of a distance than that. Something was wrong.

Mom got up very deliberately and took hold of my arm. She didn't drag me with her to the door, we just walked, but her grip was tight enough to hurt.

When she opened the door, three people were standing there. There was a woman with a briefcase, and next to her a dark haired guy, and behind them a tall, thin man. All three of them were wearing dark suits and sunglasses, like secret service agents.

"Ms. Crawley?" The man in front said. He looked sort of Hispanic. Mom nodded tautly. I noticed that she had moved a little in front of me.

The woman had brown hair and freckles. The secret agents in movies never have freckles. Like it's part of the required qualifications for the job: no freckles.

"May we come in?" She said. And then she made this little gesture with her left hand, drawing a circle in the air with her first two fingers. Clave.

Mom took hold of my shoulders and took a step back, out of their way. "Please," she said.

The guy in front frowned as they entered. It wasn't really an invitation, but it wasn't _not_ an invitation. It could have been a slip of the tongue. But that's not what I thought it was. I thought Mom was hedging her bets. Inviting people into your home makes you vulnerable to them. Cool sweat seeped from under my armpits.

Mom led everyone into the living room. The clave agents settled on the couch. I sat on the footstool and mom took the green chair. I noticed that the thin man moved just a little bit slower then everyone else, and his eyes when he took the shades off were out of focus.

The woman tucked her glasses into the briefcase and brought out a notepad. The dark-haired guy addressed us while she flipped through it.

"We are here," he said, "About a recent disturbance involving one of your son's classmates." His voice was calm and even. Soothing to listen to. The plainclothes guy from lunch should have taken lessons.


	10. Chapter 10 Of Names and Leashes

"One Ian Matabe, reported missing yesterday by school officials. Police officers forced entry into his residence, where they encountered two mounds of earth, identified as dried and crumbled clay. Mixed into each was an assortment of human bones, times of death: three to seven years ago, causes unknown. There were no signs of struggle, or of prior forced entry. Neither the juvenile nor either of the legal guardians with whom he presumably lived was present. Further investigation into the foster parents has revealed that they operated under aliases, true identities unknown, all documentation falsified. Including record of employment. They were in residence a little over a year, activities unknown. Police are calling it kidnapping, possible cult connection. The boy was a friend of your son's?"

Mom looked to me.

I swallowed and said, "Yeah." Then I bit the end of my tongue to keep from babbling.

The freckled woman had apparently found her place in the notepad. Now she looked up at mom.

"You are aware, Ms. Crawley, of the case activity last January in your region?"

"Yes," Mom replied. The woman kept looking at her. After a minute, mom supplied, "Unauthorized summoning of a prohibited entity."

The freckled woman nodded briskly. "We have reason to believe the two events are connected."

Mom waited, neutral. I counted the drops of sweat sliding down my spine.

The woman made a note on her pad before continuing. "Are you familiar with the construction of simulacra, Ms. Crawley?"

"I know of it. It's not one of my skills." Another note.

"It has come to our attention that your son was absent due to illness during the first three days Matabe was missing." The dark-haired guy said.

"I kept him home to help me with a project," Mom replied evenly. Never lie to the Clave, she told me once. It draws their attention.

"And what project might that be?" The woman asked. Mom hesitated.

"Your son is not registered." The man mentioned casually. They were both leaning forward slightly.

"He may have a talent, but he's not pursuing it," Mom told them. Then added, a little too quickly: "I had him looking things up."

The woman reached into her briefcase and brought out a thin glass vial. At the bottom a tiny bit of something sparkled, pale blue.

"Is this yours Ms. Crawley?" She asked. Crap.

"Yes," mom said softly.

"Where is the entity Ms. Crawley?" the man asked. The third man, the thin one, didn't even seem to be listening to the conversation.

Mom said nothing. I tried to think about anything but the answer. Ice cream. Baseball. Bambi.

"This is very important Ms. Crawley." The man said almost gently.

The woman took a more severe tone. "If we have to search things may get messy."

Mom looked at her hands, biting the edge of her lip. Don't! I thought fiercely. Don't tell them!

The woman kept pushing. "This kind of issue must be handled quickly for the safety of the greater community Ms. Crawley."

I stared at the third man. Did he even know where he was?

"We are far better equipped to handle this, Ms. Crawley. But we can't ensure safety for the surrounding population without the necessary information." Now the dark-haired man's tone was firm.

Unbidden, my vision of the neighborhood in ruins resurfaced. I didn't even notice my eyes moving.

Suddenly the thin man stood. My head snapped around to look up at him. He was focused on my face. His eyes were grey. I realized with a sick, sinking feeling where I had been looking. The thin man turned to the backdoor. He paused, and then nodded.

"Backyard." He said. The other two stood.

"No!" I yelled. Mom grabbed my shoulder. The thin man kept looking at the backdoor. His lips were moving silently. The other two were now looking at me.

"What will you do with him?" I asked. My own voice sounded alien, like a recording, something I'd heard on TV sometime.

The woman was taking things out of her briefcase. A round mirror with a pentacle on the back. A dagger. A length of red cord. "Our first objective is to return the entity to its origin," She said.

"What if that doesn't work?" I blurted out. "What if he doesn't want to go back?"

They were moving towards the door. No time to think. I vaulted over the back of the couch and lunged for the knob. I couldn't stop them, but maybe if I warned him Inu could get away. Before I reached it the dark-haired man said something sharply. I couldn't make it out because at the same time mom was yelling my name. Something hit me in the middle of the back, and then all the muscles in my body jerked. It was like an electric hand grabbed all my tendons at once and yanked. I hit the ground on my stomach.

When I could bend my head back enough to look up, the three Clave agents were standing over me. That I could sorta see up the woman's skirt was no consolation at all. The thin man's unfocused eyes seemed to be looking right through me, at something else on the other side. Out of the corner of my eye I could make out mom, standing, gripping the corner of the kitchen table where it comes close to the living room.

"You can't," I said, trying to get breath out of my painfully tight chest. I was crying and it was the most disgustingly embarrassing thing, but they were going to go back there and fuck over my friend, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop them. Why wasn't mom at least trying to do something? Didn't she get that these people didn't give a shit about Inu, just saw him as a problem to be fixed? "It's not his fault," I wheezed. "He hasn't done anything wrong, you can't!"

"John," Mom said in a tone of voice I hadn't heard since I was eleven and being threatened by a poltergeist, "stop Johnny. Breathe."

"Ms. Crawley," the freckled woman said. She didn't sound ruffled at all. At that moment I wanted to see her get run over by a car. "What restraints do you have on the entity?"

"We don't have any!" I panted. I was getting light headed.

"Come now Ms. Crawley. A professional of your caliber? What manner of containing spell do you have it under?"

"Mom didn't do anything! She didn't have to, he-" The dark-haired man touched me and suddenly I couldn't talk. He looked hard at mom, glanced at me, then back at mom. Mom's cool had definitely cracked. Tense lines were showing all around her mouth.

Stupid bastards! I thought. Go on, mom. Tell them. Tell them that we're helping him, not keeping him prisoner. Tell them he isn't some kind of animal that needs chaining up.

Mom clenched her hands. She looked at me. Then she looked away. "I gave him a name," She said.

"What?!" I tried to scream, but I still couldn't use my voice.

"He accepted it?"

Mom nodded without looking up.

"What name?" The thin man said.

No! I moaned silently. No. He trusted us.

"Xenon," Mom whispered.


	11. Chapter 11 Things Get Messy

The Thin man put his hands on the other two agents' shoulders. He closed his eyes, and I felt something around them shift. Then he opened the door and the three of them walked past me into the backyard. I couldn't even call out. I looked at mom. She had been coming towards me with her hands out, reaching for me, but when our eyes met she flinched. She glanced up past me, out the open door. I saw her face harden. And then she turned around and went into the kitchen.

So much for expecting _her_ help. I was too mad to cry anymore. Too mad to fucking care. The door was still cracked open about a foot. Through the gap I watched the three agents approach the tree. It was late in the day and their shadows were long and gray and fuzzy. If I craned my neck I could see Inu, almost lost in the deep shade up in the trees higher branches. He didn't seem to notice that he wasn't alone. I still couldn't speak. I could move a little more though. By grabbing me cramped hands onto the doorstep, I could sort of drag myself forward.

"Xenon," the thin man said. "To me." Then he struck the ground with a staff I hadn't noticed him carrying before. Inu stiffened as though he'd been shot, and toppled out of the tree. I heard my own breath hiss out in sympathy as he hit the ground. No grace now, he crashed down in a backbreaking heap. Apparently it made more of an impression on me than him. Inu was on his feet again in seconds, spinning to face the three, crouched.

"What the fuck?!" he snarled, spitting dirt and baring teeth. "Who the hell are you people?!"

The agents had spread out, surrounding him. The woman held the mirror, casting it's reflection onto Inu. Inu froze, but I could see him trembling, like he was trying to move but couldn't. Like an ant in honey. The dark-haired man was cutting a circle into the ground around Inu with the dagger. In the center my former classmate glared and started jerking left and right, throwing himself back and forth in short, hard movements, a little more each time. Centimeter by centimeter he forced his arms away from his body.

"Fucking bastards!" He growled, breathless. "What do you think you're-"

"Xenon," The thin man intoned. "Submit." He hit the ground with the staff again. Inu fell, thrashing and struggling. The ground under him cracked under the force of his movements, and leaves were starting to fall as the tree shook, but he still couldn't seem to stand.

No! I thought. Stop it, let him go! He didn't do anything! It's not fair, he didn't even do anything! Agonizingly slow, I started to crawl into the yard. The tension in my body was fading more and more, now that the agent's attention was elsewhere. But it was still so hard to move…

Inu made it up to his knees, still shaking with strain. There were dirt marks on his face, and his beanie was all crooked, mostly covering one eye. His hair slipped out from under it in long pale streamers.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding," He snarled. Then he lunged forward, hands reaching for the tall man, fingers curled like talons. The dark-haired man had finished the circle. When Inu made to cross it he was stopped short. The impact made a tremendous crackling sound, like a hundred radios all turned on at once. The dark-haired man drove the dagger into the ground and knelt over it, rocking slightly back and forth. Chanting, probably. The crackling covered it. It covered everything. I could see Inu's mouth working, but I couldn't hear him cry out. And then he was slammed back to the center of the circle.

Leaves fell like snow, drifting lazily down. I kept crawling. God, I would never make it in time. In time? That was a laugh. In time for what? What was I going to do, bite their ankles? The woman had set down the mirror in front of her, and was holding up the cord.

She said "Xenon" and then something in what I think was Latin. Then she tied a knot in the cord. I don't speak Latin, but I remember a colleague of mom's doing something similar once. 'By the pull of the tide and the names of the powers I bind you,' He had said. Next came 'by the weight of the earth' and then 'by the fire of the sun.' It was an old spell, a strong spell. He had really messed up the creature he used it on, and he hadn't even had a name to work with. Inu moaned and again struggled to rise. This time he stayed low on his knees, just managing to lift his head.

"No!" he panted. "Fuck! Let me go, damn you! Kuso, not again!"

The woman spoke again, invoking his name, tying the second knot. Inu was forced down until his cheek touched the dirt. He struggled every inch of the way, eyes rolling wildly. I could hear his harsh breaths in counterpoint to the dark-haired man's barely audible chanting. I'm so sorry, I thought. God. Just hang on. I'll get you out, I'll figure out something, I'll- Inu met my eyes. Surprise, outrage, and despair slid across his face like passing headlights in the night. And then his eyes widened suddenly, and suddenly narrowed. The woman had started to speak for the third time. The last knot would render him totally helpless, and then they would banish him back to where he came from. They hadn't even _tried _talking to him.

As she spoke Inu braced and pushed himself slowly up to his hands and knees. Before she could finish, he shook his whole body once, like you would shake water off your hands. It was the doggiest thing I'd ever seen him do. The cord snapped in two. The woman and the thin man with the staff stumbled backwards, like people pulling with all their strength and suddenly getting slack.

"How the bloody hell-!" the thin man said shrilly.

At the same time the woman snatched up the mirror again and yelled in a loud and commanding voice, "Xenon-!"

Inu had come up into a crouch again. He caught her eyes and hissed back, "That's not my name!"


	12. Chapter 12 Running

The woman paused with her mouth still open, as Inu coiled and struck.

"My NAME is INUYA-" and the rest got drowned out as his clawed hand hit the barrier spell. There was a crackling screech; guitar feedback meets fingers on the chalkboard, and then a breaking glass crash. The barrier shattered, flashing sun-flare bright. For a minute I couldn't see or hear, but the stiff tension lingering in my body faded away. I climbed to my knees, and then my feet, and was trying to blink all the flashing white out of my eyes and figure out which direction everybody was in when someone pushed past me and grabbed my hand. I squinted at the dark shape resolving itself into mom. She held tight to my hand, grinding something small and hard into my palm. Her other hand reached out to where Inu was struggling through the broken circle. She yelled a single word my ringing ears couldn't quite catch.

My stomach lurched with the sensation of an elevator going to far, to fast. The world blurred. And then we were in the park. The setting sun was lancing golden through the trees. Mom let go of my hand, leaving the shape of a disk broken in two imprinted on my palm. The fire drill charm. It was a pre-set one-way teleport, in case we ever had to get out of the house fast. We kept it under the fruit bowl on the kitchen table. On mom's other side Inu snatched his hand back and stared around wildly, his eyes flashing like mirrors every time he turned his head.

"The hell-?!" he panted.

"Come on," Mom said. They can trace it, they'll be here any minute. John, can you run?" I nodded and we took off towards the edge of the park. Inu hesitated before following, but he paced us easily.

"Who were those fucks and where are we going?" He asked, and there was a little growl in his voice, or maybe it was the trace of an accent he hadn't had before.

"Bus stop," mom said shortly. Unlike sparky the wonder demon, we needed our breath for running. I could move alright, but felt like I'd been put through a cement mixer.

The bus stop was only a few feet away when I felt the rush of energy from behind that meant we had company. We were almost there. But no bus in sight. Mom slowed down, panting. Her eyes swept up and down the street, her hands clenching. I wondered if she was going to try flagging down a car. Then Inu's head snapped up, and turned to the right.

"This way," he said. I didn't hear anything, but he took off running again and we followed. Or tried to. The pace Inu set was insane. My throat was burning after the first block. I kept pushing. Obviously stopping wasn't an option. Ignore the burning. Ignore the pounding in my muscles. Ignore the feeling like I'm gonna throw up-

I think I over did it a little. I didn't notice the car till it was screeching inches in front of me. It might well have stopped in time, but I didn't find out. Just then somebody grabbed my shoulder hard and hauled me out of the way. It was Inu.

"Goddamn your slow!" he snapped. And then he took a grip on me with one hand and mom with the other and started running. In moments he was practically carrying me, my feet barely touched the ground. Two minute before I had been thinking bitterly that even if he was worried about being caught it would be awful nice to tone down the speed a notch for the nice humans who had saved his butt. I realized as he dragged us along that he _had _been toning it down. The wind whipped at my eyes. I blinked to clear them, and then we were skidding to a stop just as the bus was about to pull away.

When we got on the bus mom hustled us to the back. Her hair was all crazy windblown, it looked like someone had taken a vacuum cleaner to it. Inu was still covered in dirt. I don't know what I looked like, but after a few moments of uncomfortable seat swapping we had the very back row of seats all to ourselves. Mom and I sat there panting. Inu watched us impatiently. He looked awfully spry for someone with a double row of turf stains on his face.

"How the hell is this supposed to help?" He snapped when he got tired of waiting. Which took all of two minutes.

"Crowds," mom managed. "Hard to track through crowds."

"And they can't do anything with so many people watching," I put in.

Mom nodded wearily. "yes, but that's not something to push. Rules get bent."

"Fabulous," Inu said. "Fucking wonderful, really. Now would somebody FUCKING TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?!" Everybody on the bus turned around to look, even the driver. Inu liberally distributed his freaky-eyed death-glare. Everyone found something else to look at. Apparently his adventures in dirt diving hadn't improved Inu's temper any. Mom looked put upon, but at the moment I was a little short on sympathy. Not demanding an explanation for the name thing then and there was taking up all the spare slack I had.

"They were agents of the Clave," mom said. "It's an organization made up of, and for the purpose of monitoring, practitioners throughout-"

I cut in to move the conversation along. "They're the magic police. You were summoned illegally, so they came to deport you."

"Deport me? And they do this by tying me up and grinding my face in the dirt?"

Mom frowned. "Given the kind of situations they have to cope with-"

"What can I say," I interjected again, "Immigration's a bitch."

Mom glared at me and made a noise that clearly indicated she was biting her tongue on a class A high decibel lecture. I glared out the window. Inu glared at the world at large. For a while we rode in silence.

Finally I asked, without turning around, "where are we going?"

"Wherever the bus goes," mom replied shortly.


	13. Chapter 13 Busing it

**Sooo…this is the last chapter I have at the moment. I rather like this story, and I have a sense of where it's going, so I _could_ write more. On the other hand, I'm involved in a bunch of other projects right now. So if anyone wants to see more of this, let me know. If not I may let it lie for the time being.**

We rode that bus all the way around the west side until it reached the terminal. And then we got off, and without saying a word mom led us onto a different bus. I think she picked the most crowded one. That one circled the eastside and went up and down Portola av. twice. It was almost eleven when we got back to the terminal. The crowds were starting to thin, and get weirder. I guess we fit right in. Mom glanced at the route map. Then she shoved a wad of cash at me.

"Both of you go to the bathroom and clean up," she said tightly. "Then hit the vending machines. Water, protein, sugar. Be back here in fifteen minutes."

I was more of a mess than I realized. The bathroom mirrors displayed a colorful mass of bruises where my chin had hit the ground, and my knees and hands were caked with dirt. Inu took one look at his face (all dirt, if he ever had bruises they were gone already) and snarled like a pit bull.

"Hey," I said softly, wincing around the wet paper towels I was using on my face, "It's not that bad, right? You're ok."

Inu watched me for a long moment, and then he shrugged and started wiping his face off.

On the way out of the bathroom he said in a low voice, "everyone's ok this time. But if those assholes _ever _try that shit on me again, I am going to kill them." The way he said it put a chill down my spine. It was like he actually meant just that. But I still couldn't honestly say I blamed him.

Ten minutes later we met up with mom again, laden with bottled water, peanut butter cheese crackers, and Snickers. Mom nodded, and herded us onto yet another bus, this one headed out of town and up the coast.

"Where are we going?" I asked again. Some of the edge must have been missing from my 'tude, because this time she answered in a gentler voice.

"Somewhere we can lay low for a while."

The bus ran all night. None of us talked much. I slept some. The rest of the time I stared out a window at the dark and the passing headlights, wondering if my whole life had just been jerked out from under me, and if I would ever get it back.

I woke up a little after dawn. I could see again, the sky was grey and kind of pinkish. My mouth tasted like week old ass. Inu was sleeping. Mom had her head leaned back, but her eyes were open.

"Hey," I whispered.

She turned her head to look at me. "Hey," she whispered back with a sad sort of half smile.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

Mom sighed. "I guess I knew you wouldn't approve."

"It's a shitty thing to do, putting a spell on someone when they trust you."

"Don't you swear at me. A, a name is not a spell. And B you can't possibly expect me to invite an unknown, violent and possibly powerful entity into my home with my child and not take some kind of precautions."

"Oh sure, it's not a spell on it's own. Whatever. It's a set up. It's like putting a collar on him, just waiting for someone to snap on a leash."

"what else are you supposed to do with a strange dog?"

"Ian's not a dog! He's…I mean Inu's not…"

"He's not Ian, John." Mom said gently. "he's not your friend from before, he's not human."

"See, that's the part you don't get. He _is _my friend from before. Maybe he's not Ian like the bonefide original, but why should I care? I never even met Ian-Ian. Its not about him. All I know is Inu-Ian, and just cuz he's turning out not to be who he thought he was doesn't mean he's not my friend anymore. So he's not human. That sucks, but he's still the kid from math I used to hang with sometimes, and he's still in a fucked up situation, and he still needs help."

Mom listened quietly, and then frowned and shook her head. "I don't think you fully understand. This person you knew was a sham, his body and his personality were shaped by terrible magic. And now that magic is falling apart, and we have no idea of what's underneath. What if the "person" he is once all the restraints of Ian's mind are gone is not someone you want near you? He could end up as nothing more than a very effective killing machine. I had to take the possibility into account."

I ground my teeth and looked away. This was reminding me way to much of Inu's whole 'what if I don't want to remember' speech. What if, under it all, he really was a monster? I looked over at Inu, sleeping with his head tipped forward. Bits of his white hair were falling out from under that beanie. They were sort of grey and grungy now.

"But he _isn't_," I said. "He's just…him. Whoever that is. Sure he's changed, and he can be kind of a dick sometimes, but you gotta figure he's been through some awful shit in the last week. And basically he still seems like an ok guy."

Mom looked at me, her head tilted a little to one side. "I know," she said finally. "And that's why I'm here, taking this crazy risk even though we still don't know what he might turn into. You could be right, and I can't let you take this on alone."

What can I say. My mom's pretty awesome sometimes. I looked around to make sure no one was watching, and then gave her a quick hug.

"Thanks. That…that's really cool."

Mom smiled, but her voice was grim. "I hope so. I really hope so."

I laid my head back against the window. After a minute, mom said, "Um, John?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you, aren't you going to ask, why I told them?"

"Huh? Oh, I know that already."

"You do?"

"sure, it was cuz they were threatening me, right?"

"…Oh. I wasn't sure you caught that."

"Hey, I've seen a lot of action movies. I know how hostage situations work."

"And you're not mad about it?"

"…You're my _mom_. You can't just let bad guys rough me up, it's against the mom rules or something."

I settled back into my seat to try and get some sleep. When I turned my head, I caught a glimpse of Inu's eyes, glinting yellow through the long white strands. Our eyes met for a second, and then he turned his face back towards the window.


End file.
